Elevation

CHAPTER 6 The Incredible Lightness of Being

There were limits to what Scott had come to think of as “the weightless effect.” His clothes did not float up from his body. Chairs did not levitate when he sat in them, although if he carried one into the bathroom and stood on the scale with it, its weight didn’t register. If there were rules to what was going on, he didn’t understand them, or care to. His outlook remained optimistic, and he slept through the night. Those were the things he cared about.

He called Mike Badalamente on New Year’s Day, passed on the appropriate good wishes, and then said he was thinking about making a trip to California in a few weeks, to see his only surviving aunt. If he made the trip, would Mike take his cat?

“Well, I don’t know,” Mike said. “Maybe. Does he do his business in a litter box?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why me?”

“Because I believe every bookstore should have a resident cat, which you are currently lacking.”

“How long are you planning to be gone?”

“Don’t know. It sort of depends on how Aunt Harriet is doing.” There was no Aunt Harriet, of course, and he would have to have Doctor Bob or Myra take the cat to Mike’s. Deirdre and Missy both smelled of dog, and Scott could no longer even stroke his old friend; Bill ran away if he came too near.

“What does he eat?”

“Friskies,” Scott said. “And a good supply will come with the animal. If I decide to go, that is.”

“Okay, you got a deal.”

“Thanks, Mike. You’re a pal.”

“I am, but not just because of that. You did this town a small but valuable mitzvah when you helped the McComb woman get up so she could finish the race. What was happening with her and her wife was ugly. It’s better now.”

“A little better.”

“Actually quite a lot.”

“Well, thanks. And Happy New Year again.”

“Back atcha, buddy. What’s the feline’s name?”

“Bill. Bill D. Cat, actually.”

“Like in Bloom County. Cool.”

“Pick him up and give him a stroke once in awhile. If I decide to go, that is. He likes that.”

Scott hung up, thought about what giving things away meant—especially things that were also valued friends—and closed his eyes.

Doctor Bob called a few days later, and asked Scott if his weight-loss was remaining constant at one and a half to two pounds a day. Scott said it was, knowing the lie couldn’t come back to haunt him; he looked the same as ever, right down to the bulge of belly hanging over his belt.

“So… you still think you’ll be down to nothing in early March?”

“Yes.”

Scott now thought Zero Day might come before January was out, but he didn’t know for sure, couldn’t even make an educated guess, because he had stopped weighing himself. Not so long ago he had avoided the bathroom scale because it showed too many pounds; now he stayed away for the opposite reason. The irony was not lost on him.

For the time being Bob and Myra Ellis were not to know how things had speeded up, nor were Missy and Deirdre. He would have to tell them eventually, because when the end came, he would need help from one of them. And he knew which one.

“What do you weigh now?” Doctor Bob asked.

“106,” Scott said.

“Holy shit!”

He guessed Ellis would say a lot more than holy shit if he knew what Scott knew: it was more like seventy. He could cross his big living room in four loping strides, or jump, catch one of the overhead beams, and swing from it like Tarzan. He hadn’t reached what his weight would be on the moon, but he was closing in on it.

Doctor Bob was silent for a moment, then said, “Have you considered that the cause of what’s happening to you might be alive?”

“Sure,” Scott said. “Maybe an exotic bacteria that got into a cut, or some extremely rare virus that I inhaled.”

“Has it crossed your mind that it might be sentient?”

It was Scott’s turn to be silent. At last he said, “Yes.”

“You’re dealing with this extremely well, I must say.”

“So far, so good,” Scott said, but three days later he discovered just how much he might have to deal with before the end came. You thought you knew, you thought you could get ready… and then you tried to get the mail.

Western Maine had been experiencing a January thaw since New Year’s Day, with temperatures in the fifties. Two days after Doctor Bob’s call, it climbed all the way into the sixties, and the kids went back to school wearing their light jackets. That night, however, temperatures dropped and a sleety, granular snow began falling.

Scott barely noticed. He spent the evening on his computer, ordering stuff. He could have gotten all the items locally—the wheelchair and chest harness from the ostomy department of the CVS where he’d bought his Halloween candy, the ramp and clamps from Purdy’s Hardware—but local people had a tendency to talk. And ask questions. He didn’t want that.

The snow ended around midnight, and the following day dawned clear and cold. The new snow, frozen to a crust on top, was almost too brilliant to look at. It was as if his lawn and driveway had been sprayed with transparent plastic. Scott put on his parka and went out to get the mail. He had gotten in the habit of skipping the steps and just leaping down to the driveway. His legs, wildly overmuscled for his weight, seemed to crave that explosion of energy.

He did it now, and when his feet hit the icy crust, they shot out from under him. He landed on his ass, started to laugh, then stopped when he began to slide. He went down the slope of the lawn on his back, like a weight along the sawdusty surface of an arcade bowling game, gaining speed as he approached the street. He grabbed at a bush, but it was coated with ice and his hand slid off. He rolled over on his stomach and spread his legs, thinking that might slow him down. It didn’t. He only slued sideways.

The crust is thick but not that thick, he thought. If I weighed as much as I look like I weigh, I’d break through and stop. But I don’t. I’m going into the street, and if a car’s coming along, it probably won’t be able to stop in time. Then I won’t have to worry about Zero Day.

He didn’t go that far. He struck the post on which his mailbox was mounted, and hard enough to knock the wind out of him. When he recovered, he tried to stand up. He did a split on the slippery crust and went down again. He braced his feet against the post and pushed. That didn’t work, either. He went four or five feet, his momentum died, and he slid back into the post. Next he tried pulling himself along, but his clutching fingers only slid on the crust. He had forgotten his gloves, and his hands were going numb.

I need help, he thought, and the name that immediately jumped to mind was Deirdre’s. He reached into the pocket of his parka, but for once he had forgotten his phone. It was sitting back on his study desk. He supposed he could push himself into the street anyway, work his way over to the side, and wave down an oncoming car. Someone would stop and help him, but that someone would ask questions Scott didn’t want to answer. His driveway was even more hopeless; it looked like a skating rink.

So here I am, he thought, like a turtle on its back. Hands going numb, feet soon to follow.

He craned to look up at the bare trees, their branches swaying mildly against the cloudless blue sky. He looked at the mailbox, and saw what might be a solution to his serio-comic problem. He sat up with his crotch braced against the post and grabbed the metal flag on the side of the box. It was loose, and two hard pulls was enough to snap it off. He used the ragged metal end to dig two holes in the crust. He put his knee in one, then his foot in the other. He stood up, holding the post with his free hand for balance. He made his way up the lawn to the steps in this fashion, bending to chop through the crust, stepping forward, then breaking through the crust again.

A couple of cars went by, and someone honked. Scott raised a hand and waved without turning around. By the time he got back to the steps, his hands had lost all feeling, and one was bleeding in two places. His back hurt like a motherfucker. He started up to the door, slipped, and barely managed to grab the ice-coated iron railing before he could go sliding back down to the mailbox again. He wasn’t sure he would have had it in him to climb back up, even with holes to step in. He was exhausted, stinking with sweat inside his parka. He lay down in the hall. Bill came to look at him—but not too close—and miaowed his concern.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’ll still get fed.”

Yes, I’m okay, he thought. Just a little impromptu sledding on the crust. But this is where the really weird shit begins.

He supposed if there was a consolation, it was that the really weird shit wouldn’t last long.

But I need to put up those clamps and put down that ramp ASAP. Not much time now.

On a Monday evening in mid-month, the members of the “Dr. Ellis party” had their last meal together. Scott hadn’t seen any of them for a week, citing the need to hole up and finish his current department store project. Which had actually been done, at least in first draft, before Christmas. He guessed someone else would be applying the finishing touches.

He said it would have to be a potluck, with them bringing the food, because cooking had become difficult for him. In truth, everything had become difficult. Going upstairs was easy enough; three large, effortless leaps did the job. Going down was harder. He was afraid he might tumble and break a leg, so he held the railing and eased down step by step, like an old man with gout and bad hips. He had also developed a tendency to run into walls, because momentum had become hard to judge and even harder to control.

Myra asked him about the ramp now covering the steps to the stoop. Doctor Bob and Missy were more concerned about the wheelchair sitting in the corner of the living room, and the chest harness—made for people with little or no ability to sit upright—draped over its back. Deirdre asked no questions, only looked at him with wise, unhappy eyes.

They ate a tasty vegetarian casserole (Missy), au gratin potatoes with a cheesy sauce (Myra), and topped the meal off with a lumpy but tasty angel food cake that was only slightly burned on the bottom (Doctor Bob). The wine was good, but the talk and the laughter were better.

When they were finished, he said: “Time to fess up. I’ve been lying to you. This has been going quite a bit faster than I said it was.”

“Scott, no!” Missy cried.

Doctor Bob nodded, seeming unsurprised. “How much faster?”

“Three pounds a day, not one or two.”

“And how much do you weigh now?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been avoiding the scale. Let’s find out.”

Scott tried to stand. His thighs connected with the table and he flew forward, knocking over two wineglasses when he put out his hands to stop himself. Deirdre quickly picked up the tablecloth and threw it over the spill.

“Sorry, sorry,” Scott said. “Don’t know my own strength these days.”

He turned as gingerly as a man on roller skates, and started toward the back half of the house. No matter how carefully he tried to walk, his steps became leaps. His remaining weight wanted him on the earth; his muscles insisted he rise above it. He overbalanced and had to grab one of the newly installed clamps to keep from going headlong into the hallway.

“Oh God,” Deirdre said. “It must be like learning to walk all over again.”

You should have seen the last time I tried to get the mail, Scott thought. That was a real learning experience.

At least none of them were revisiting the clinic idea. Not that their failure to do that surprised him. A single look at his locomotion, at once awkward, ridiculous, and weirdly graceful, was enough to dispel the idea that a clinic might do him any good. This was a private matter now. They understood that. He was glad.

They all crowded into the bathroom and watched him stand on the Ozeri scale. “Jesus,” Missy said quietly. “Oh, Scott.”

The readout was 30.2 pounds.

He made his way back to the dining room with them following along behind. He went as carefully as a man using stones to cross a creek, and still ended up running into the table again. Missy instinctively reached out to steady him, but he waved her off before she could touch him.

When they were seated, he said, “I’m all right with this. Fine, in fact. Really.”

Myra was very pale. “How can you be?”

“I don’t know. I just am. But this is our farewell dinner. I won’t see you guys again. Except for Deirdre. I need someone to help me at the end. Will you do it?”

“Yes, of course.” She didn’t hesitate, only put an arm around her wife, who had begun to cry.

“I just want to say…” Scott stopped, cleared his throat. “I want to say that I wish we had more time. You’ve been good friends to me.”

“There’s no compliment more sincere than that,” Doctor Bob said. He was wiping his eyes with a napkin.

“It’s not fair!” Missy burst out. “It’s not goddam fair!”

“Well, no,” Scott agreed, “it isn’t. But I’m not leaving any kids behind, my ex is happy where she is, there’s that, and it’s fairer than cancer, or Alzheimer’s, or being a burn victim in a hospital ward. I guess I’d go down in history, if anyone talked about it.”

“Which we won’t,” Doctor Bob said.

“No,” Deirdre agreed. “We won’t. Can you tell me what it is you need me to do, Scott?”

He could and did, mentioning everything except what was tucked away in a paper bag in the hall closet. They listened in silence, and no one spoke a word of disagreement.

When he finished, Myra asked, very timidly, “What does it feel like, Scott? What do you feel like?”

Scott thought of how he’d felt running down Hunter’s Hill, when he’d gotten his second wind and the whole world had stood revealed in the usually hidden glory of ordinary things—the leaden, lowering sky, the bunting flapping from the downtown buildings, every precious pebble and cigarette butt and beer can discarded by the side of the road. His own body for once working at top capacity, every cell loaded with oxygen.

“Elevated,” he said at last.

He looked at Deirdre McComb, saw her shining eyes fixed on his face, and knew she understood why he had chosen her.

Myra coaxed Bill into his cat carrier. Doctor Bob took it down to his 4Runner and stowed it in the back. Then the four of them stood on the porch, their breath pluming in the cold night air. Scott remained in the entry, holding tight to one of the clamps.

“May I say something before we go?” Myra asked.

“Of course,” Scott said, but wished she wouldn’t. He wished they would just leave. He thought he had discovered one of life’s great truths (and one he could have done without): the only thing harder than saying goodbye to yourself, a pound at a time, was saying goodbye to your friends.

“I was very foolish. I’m sorry about what’s happening to you, Scott, but I’m glad about what’s happened to me. If it hadn’t, I would have stayed blind to some very good things, and some very good people. I would have stayed a foolish old woman. I can’t hug you, so this will have to do.”

She opened her arms, drew Deirdre and Missy to her, and embraced them. They hugged her back.

Doctor Bob said, “If you need me, I’ll come at a sprint.” He laughed. “Well, no, my sprinting days are actually behind me, but you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Scott said. “Thank you.”

“So long, old man. Take care where you step. And how.”

Scott watched them walk to Doctor Bob’s car. He watched them get in. He waved, being careful to hold onto the clamp as he did it. Then he closed the door and made his half-walking, half-leaping way to the kitchen, feeling like a cartoon character. Which was, at bottom, the reason it felt so important to keep this a secret. He was sure he looked absurd, and it was absurd… but only if you were on the outside.

He sat down at the kitchen counter and looked at the empty corner where Bill’s food and water dish had been for the last seven years. He looked at it for a long time. Then he went up to bed.

The following day, he got an email from Missy Donaldson.

Scott thought about calling her and thanking her for saying such kind things, then decided that was a bad idea. It might get them both going. He printed out her note instead, and put it in one of the pockets of the harness.

He would take it with him when he went.

The following Sunday morning, Scott went along the hall to the downstairs bathroom in a series of steps that weren’t steps at all. Each one was a long float that took him up to the ceiling, where he would push his tented fingers to bring himself back down. The furnace kicked on, and the soft whoosh of air from the vent actually blew him sideways a little. He twisted and grabbed a clamp to pull himself past the draft.

In the bathroom, he hovered over the scale and finally settled. At first he thought it wasn’t going to report any weight at all. Then, at last, it coughed up a number: 2.1. It was about what he had expected.

That evening he called Deirdre’s cell. He kept it simple. “I need you. Can you come?”

“Yes.” It was all she said, and all he needed.

The door of the house was shut but unlocked. Deirdre slipped in, not opening the door all the way because of the draft. She turned on the hall lights to dispel the shadows, then went into the living room. Scott was in the wheelchair. He had managed to get partway into the harness, which had been buckled to the back of the chair, but his body floated upward from the chair’s seat and one arm hung in the air. His face was bright with sweat, the front of his shirt dark with it.

“I almost waited too long,” he said. He sounded breathless. “I had to swim down to the chair. Breaststroke, if you can believe it.”

Deirdre could. She went to him and stood in front of the wheelchair, looking at him with wonder. “How long have you been here like this?”

“Awhile. Wanted to wait until dark. Is it dark?”

“Almost.” She dropped to her knees. “Oh, Scott. This is so bad.”

He shook his head back and forth in slow motion, like a man shaking his head underwater. “You know better.”

She thought she did. Hoped she did.

He struggled with his floating arm and finally managed to shoot it into the vest’s armhole. “Can you try to buckle the straps across my chest and waist without touching me?”

“I think so,” she said, but twice her knuckles brushed him as she knelt in front of the chair—once his side, once his shoulder—and both times she felt her body rise and then settle back. Her stomach did a flip with each contact, what she remembered her father calling a whoops-my-dear when their car went over a big bump. Or, yes—Missy had been right—like when a rollercoaster crested the first hill, hesitated, then plunged.

At last it was done. “Now what?”

“Soon we sample the night air. But first go into the closet, the one in the entry where I keep my boots. There’s a paper bag, and a coil of rope. I think you can push the wheelchair, but if you can’t, you’ll have to tie the rope around the headrest and pull it.”

“And you’re sure about this?”

He nodded, smiling. “Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life tied into this thing? Or having someone climb a stepladder to feed me?”

“Well, that would make a dandy YouTube video.”

“One no one would believe.”

She found the rope and the brown paper bag and took them back to the living room. Scott held out his hands. “Come on, big girl, let’s see your skills. Toss me the bag from there.”

She did, and it was a good throw. The bag arced through the air toward his outreached hands… stopped less than an inch above his palms… then settled slowly into them. There the bag seemed to gain weight, and Deirdre had to remind herself of what he’d said when he first explained what was happening: things were heavy to him. Was that a paradox? It made her head hurt, whatever it was, and there was no time to think about it now, anyway. He stripped off the paper bag and held a square object wrapped in thick paper decorated with starbursts. Protruding from the bottom was a flat red tongue about six inches long.

“It’s called a SkyLight. A hundred and fifty dollars from Fireworks Factory in Oxford. I bought it online. Hope it’s worth it.”

“How will you light it? How can you, when… when you’re…”

“Don’t know if I can, but confidence is high. It’s got a scratch fuse.”

“Scott, do I have to do this?”

“Yes,” he said.

“You want to go.”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s time.”

“It’s cold outside, and you’re covered with sweat.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

But it did to her. She went upstairs to his bedroom and pulled the comforter off a bed that had been slept in—at some point, anyway—but bore no impression of his body on the mattress or his head on the pillow.

“Comforter,” she snorted. It seemed a very stupid word under the circumstances. She took it downstairs and tossed it to him as she had tossed the paper bag, watching with the same fascination as it paused… bloomed… and then settled over his chest and lap.

“Wrap that around you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She watched him do it, then tucked the part trailing on the floor under his feet. This time the lift was more serious, the whoops-my-dear a double flip instead of a single. Her knees rose from the floor and she could feel her hair stream upward. Then it was done, and when her knees thumped down on the boards again, she had a better understanding of why he could smile. She remembered something she’d read in college—Faulkner, maybe: Gravity is the anchor that pulls us down into our graves. There would be no grave for this man, and no more gravity, either. He had been given a special dispensation.

“Snug as a bug in a rug,” he said.

“Don’t joke, Scott. Please.”

She went behind the wheelchair and put her hands tentatively on the jutting handles. There was no need of the rope; her weight stayed. She pushed him toward the door, onto the stoop, and down the ramp.

The night was cold, chilling the sweat on his face, but the air was as sweet and crisp as the first bite of a fall apple. Above him was a half-moon and what seemed like a trillion stars.

To match the trillion pebbles, just as mysterious, that we walk over every day, he thought. Mystery above, mystery below. Weight, mass, reality: mystery all around.

“Don’t you cry,” he said. “This isn’t a goddam funeral.”

She pushed him onto the snowy lawn. The wheels sank eight inches deep and stopped. Not far from the house, but far enough to avoid being caught under one of the eaves. That would be an anticlimax, he thought, and laughed.

“What’s the joke, Scott?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Everything.”

“Look down there. At the street.”

Scott saw three bundled-up figures, each with a flashlight: Missy, Myra, and Doctor Bob.

“I couldn’t keep them away.” Deirdre came around the wheelchair and dropped to one knee in front of the bundled-up figure with his bright eyes and sweat-clumped hair.

“Did you try? Tell the truth, DeeDee.” It was the first time he had called her that.

“Well… not very hard.”

He nodded and smiled. “Good discussion.”

She laughed, then wiped her eyes. “Are you ready?”

“Yes. Can you help me with the buckles?”

She managed the two holding the harness to the back of the chair, and he rose at once against the lap strap. She had to struggle with that, because it was tight and her hands were going numb in the January cold. She kept touching him, and each time she did her body would rise from the snow cover, making her feel like a human pogo stick. She stuck with it, and finally the last strap holding him to the chair began to slide free.

“I love you, Scott,” she said. “We all do.”

“Right back atcha,” he said. “Give your good girl a kiss for me.”

“Two,” she promised.

Then the strap slithered out of the buckle and it was done.

He rose slowly from the chair, the coverlet trailing below him like the hem of a long skirt, feeling absurdly like Mary Poppins, minus the umbrella. Then a breeze caught him, and he began to rise faster. He clutched the coverlet with one hand and the SkyLight against his chest with the other. He saw the diminishing circle of Deirdre’s upturned face. He watched her wave, but his hands were occupied and he couldn’t wave back. He saw the others wave from where they stood on View Drive. He saw their flashlights focused on him, and noted how they began drawing together as he gained altitude.

The breeze tried to turn him, making him think of how he’d slued sideways on his ridiculous trip down his snow-crusted lawn to the mailbox, but when he partially unwrapped the coverlet and held it out on the side the wind was coming from, he steadied. That might not last long, but it didn’t matter. For the time being he only wanted to look down and see his friends—Deirdre on the lawn by the wheelchair, the others in the street. He passed his bedroom window and saw the lamp was still on, casting a yellow stripe on his bed. He could see things on his bureau—watch, comb, little fold of money—that he would never touch again. He rose higher, and the moonlight was bright enough for him to see some kid’s Frisbee caught in an angle of the roof, maybe tossed up there before he and Nora had bought the place.

That kid could be grown up now, he thought. Writing in New York or digging ditches in San Francisco or painting in Paris. Mystery, mystery, mystery.

Now he caught escaping heat from the house, a thermal, and began rising faster. The town disclosed itself as if from a drone or low-flying plane, the streetlamps along Main Street and Castle View like pearls on a string. He could see the Christmas tree that Deirdre had lit over a month ago, and which would remain in the town square until the first of February.

It was cold up here, much colder than on the ground, but that was all right. He let the coverlet go and watched it drop, spreading out as it went, slowing, becoming a parachute, not weightless but almost.

Everyone should have this, he thought, and perhaps, at the end, everyone does. Perhaps in their time of dying, everyone rises.

He held out the SkyLight and scratched the fuse with a fingernail. Nothing happened.

Light, damn you. I didn’t get much of a last meal, so could I at least have a last wish?

He scratched again.

“Ican’t see him anymore,” Missy said. She was crying. “He’s gone. We might as well—”

“Wait,” Deirdre said. She had joined them at the foot of Scott’s driveway.

“For what?” Doctor Bob asked.

“Just wait.”

So they waited, looking up into the darkness.

“I don’t think—” Myra began.

“A little longer,” Deirdre said, thinking, Come on, Scott, come on, you’re almost at the finish line, it’s your race to win, your tape to break through, so don’t blow it. Don’t choke. Come on, big boy, let’s see your skills.

Brilliant fire burst high above them: reds and yellows and greens. There was a pause, then came a perfect fury of gold, a shimmering waterfall that rained down and rained down and rained down, as if it would never end.

Deirdre took Missy’s hand.

Doctor Bob took Myra’s hand.

They watched until the last golden sparks went out, and the night was dark again. Somewhere high above them, Scott Carey continued to gain elevation, rising above the earth’s mortal grip with his face turned toward the stars.